VRChat, one of the most popular online virtual chatrooms, implemented extensive anti-cheat software that effectively bans many user-created mods late last month. Players haven’t been happy about it, especially with the company’s recent decision to file cease and desist letters against particular modding community members.
Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC), the software that VRChat now uses, is intended to target modifications that maliciously tweak the platform or add NSFW content. Unfortunately, many mods that add accessibility options and other helpful features like closed captions have also been hit by EAC. Thankfully, VRChat Inc. is fixing this specific issue.
“Our first priority for these changes is addressing several accessibility concerns in VRChat,” the company said in a blog post. “We’ve got an internal list of improvements we can implement quickly and are fast-tracking it through our production and implementation process.”
One member of the VRC Private Server staff that goes by ‘Emilia’ on Discord announced that they would be taking down their network after receiving a cease and desist letter from VRChat Inc.
“This is extremely dangerous behaviour by VRChat, and means not only that VRC modding is dead, but other communities could be next,” reads the announcement. “As a reminder, NSFW content and activity are against VRChat terms of service, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that could be their next target.”
However, VRChat claims that EAC didn’t target this specific community project.
“It is true that we sent out a C&D — but it is unrelated to the situation with EAC and the modding community,” VRChat told GLHF. “The person it was sent to was building a copy of our services to bypass our security, violate our copyrights, and was additionally threatening us with malicious action, like the release of exploit information.”
It’s a messy situation with no end in sight. Many users are review-bombing VRChat on Steam over all of this confusion. Right now, it’s sitting at an “Overwhelmingly Negative” user rating.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.